The Breakthrough Initiatives, created by Russian billionaire physicist Yuri Milner, is one of the most forward-thinking space exploration groups in the world. Among Breakthrough’s many ambitious projects is Breakthrough Starshot. The goal is to send hundreds of gram-sized spacecraft to the nearest star-Proxima Centauri, some 4.2 light-years away-and have them arrive within our lifetimes. The craft would then attempt to communicate with Earth and transmit photos of Proxima Centauri and its orbiting planet, Proxima b, back to us.

The Breakthrough Initiatives recently held an international conference called Breakthrough Discuss at Stanford University. Hundreds of researchers and engineers met to flesh out Breakthrough’s many ambitious space exploration goals. Starshot attracted perhaps the most interest due to its thrilling prospects and many technical challenges to overcome.

The verdict? “It looks feasible,” according to Harvard science professor Avi Loeb who chairs the advisory committee for Breakthrough Starshot.

Even though the target star system is closer to us than any other, it’s still mind-bogglingly far away: 25 trillion miles. Voyager 1, the spacecraft that has traveled farthest from Earth, has been flying at 38,000 mph for forty years, and it’s only a tiny fraction closer to Proxima Centauri than it was when it launched. At Voyager’s rate, it would take tens of thousands of years for the spacecraft to get anywhere close to Proxima Centauri, even if it were headed in the right direction.

Conventional rocket launches and gravity assist maneuvers just won’t take us anywhere near the stars. We need a new plan.

Light sails are reflective surfaces resembling tin foil that use photons from a source of light, such as a laser beam or the sun, to propel a spacecraft. When the photons of light bounce off the reflective surface, the energy is transferred to a small push, and the craft accelerates in the near-vacuum of space.

The technology isn’t just theoretical. In 2010, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched a craft called IKAROS-the first successful interplanetary probe to use light sailing as a means of propulsion. The Planetary Society also launched a light sail back in June 2015, and the institution is working on a new sail, the LightSail 2, slated for launch later this year.

This just in: a complete image of #LightSail in space! The future of space travel…

Breakthrough Starshot wants to take light sail technology even farther out to space-all the way to Proxima Centauri. Last year, the organization announced a plan to use light sailing and laser propulsion to accelerate dozens or even hundreds of nano-spacecraft fast enough to reach Proxima Centauri in a matter of decades. We’re talking about relativistic speeds, roughly 20 percent of the speed of light, or somewhere around 100 million mph. Only at such a ludicrous speed could a probe reach Proxima Centauri in a reasonable two or three decades. Then it will take another four years or so for the radio signals to get back to Earth, traveling at the full-bore speed of light.

“In doing these calculations, nothing has come up yet that seems like it’s not possible.”

The probes themselves would be little more than small computer chips with a smartphone-like camera, a radio transmitter, and a few other basic electronics. Cornell University is currently working on a project called KickSat to develop just this type of tiny spacecraft, which the KickSat team calls “chipsats.” These chipsats are to be deployed from a CubeSat after launch, and in the future, little spacecraft with light sails could be released in orbit the same way. Yuri Milner has met with the KickSat team to discuss their chipsats, also known as Sprites, and the possibility of adapting them for a trip to Proxima Centauri.

Dozens of large lasers constructed on the globe would need to work together to form an array and coalesce into one powerful beam of light. According to Breakthrough, an enormous, global network of lasers would need to continuously hit the light sails for only about two minutes to get the little probes up to 20 percent the speed of light.

Convincing the space agencies of the world to contribute to a global laser system comes with its own set of logistical and engineering challenges, but it is certainly possible with largescale cooperation. The Starshot team’s problems don’t end there, though. There’s also the small problem of making sure everything doesn’t get shredded to bits as it flies through space at a million miles per hour.

A Spherical Sail

While the laser-propulsion plan has remained unchanged since the initial announcement, the Breakthrough Starshot team is just starting to dig deep into the engineering challenges. The Breakthrough Discuss conference at Stanford was the first large-scale meeting to develop a plan for Starshot, and those championing the mission have no short supply of problems to overcome.

Zach Manchester, an aerospace engineer and creator of the KickSat project, is working with the Starshot team to develop a concept for the solar sail, the main mechanism for getting to Proxima Centauri. Initially he thought a traditional, flat, kite-like sail-similar to the one used by IKAROS-would be the best way to go. But after a year of study, Manchester suggested the Starshot solar sail would probably need to be spherical instead of flat, making it look something like a small disco ball once deployed. Building a spherical sail also introduces the possibility of putting the probe itself inside the sail, rather than having it attached to the middle or towed along behind.

Developing the sail could prove harder than building enormous lasers all over the world. And then there’s the issue of communicating with a spacecraft that’s 25 trillion miles away.

How Will We Know If It Worked?

“We’ve identified 20 of the biggest challenges, and one of the biggest is the communication delay between the spacecraft and the star, which is 4 light-years away,” says Avi Loeb, Professor of Science at Harvard University and chair of the advisory committee for Breakthrough Starshot. “We have to be able to send the photographic data that’s being recorded, but you can’t focus the beam of the laser at that distance. When we went to look over the numbers it looks feasible-it’ll just be very challenging.”

Currently, it takes about twenty minutes to receive 250 megabits of data from spacecraft orbiting Mars. Data from Voyager 1 takes more than a day and a half to phone home from 10 billion miles away. Even if the Starshot team gets a spacecraft to Proxima Centauri in a few decades, any photos of the enticing planet Proxima b will take over four years to reach Earth, and the more data we transmit, the longer it will take.

To get all that photographic data back-data that could very well lead to the discovery of new worlds around out closest neighbor stars-we will need to improve our ground-based receivers and radio telescopes. It is possible that a global array of radio dishes could distinguish the signals of the probes. China’s new Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world, is already being used by Milner’s Breakthrough Listen mission to search for signals from intelligent life. The enormous dish could be crucial for helping us detect a signal from a nanoprobe at Proxima Centauri.

“We Haven’t Found a Deal Breaker Yet”

The Starshot initiative is ambitious and daring to say the least, but it’s not the first time humans have set out to test the limits of engineering. Fortunately, both Loeb and Manchester felt great after the two-day discussion. “I came out of it with a lot more hope and a mindset that everyone on board thinks this is doable. We haven’t found a deal breaker yet, basically. In doing these calculations nothing has come up yet that seems like it’s not possible,” says Manchester.

While Starshot is still a nascent project, the hundreds of scientists and engineers who attended the conference were in good spirits about the possibilities. They all trust that together they can work out the engineering kinks required to make something of this magnitude work. Surely if the team from Starshot succeeds, whether it’s 30 years from now or 100, they will have single-handedly revolutionized the way we explore the cosmos.

We are on the verge of not just interplanetary exploration, but interplanetary infrastructure and industry as well. If Breakthrough can pull off its Starshot, we will be well on our way to a new era of interstellar exploration. It’s time to start building some big ol’ lasers.

]]>http://jhampton.wonecks.net/2017/08/08/solar-eclipse-august-21-links-to-information/feed/0Posting of Grades on Skywardhttp://jhampton.wonecks.net/2017/08/08/posting-of-grades-on-skyward/
http://jhampton.wonecks.net/2017/08/08/posting-of-grades-on-skyward/#respondTue, 08 Aug 2017 15:25:20 +0000http://jhampton.wonecks.net/?p=4520Please be aware that the posting of
your child’s grades will vary according to the subject area ranging from three (3) days to two
(2) weeks determined by the complexity of the assignments. Minor assignments: 1-3 days;
Major assignments: 3-5 days; Major writing assignments, major projects: 10 days.
]]>http://jhampton.wonecks.net/2017/08/08/posting-of-grades-on-skyward/feed/0National Geographic Article on Solar Eclipse August 21, 2017http://jhampton.wonecks.net/2017/06/14/national-geographic-article-on-solar-eclipse-august-21-2017/
http://jhampton.wonecks.net/2017/06/14/national-geographic-article-on-solar-eclipse-august-21-2017/#respondWed, 14 Jun 2017 20:51:49 +0000http://jhampton.wonecks.net/?p=4516

How to See the Best Total Solar Eclipse in a Century

The August eclipse will be the first to go coast to coast across the U.S. since 1918, offering viewing opportunities for millions of people.

1 / 7

VIEW IMAGES

An onlooker watches an annular solar eclipse from New Mexico.

PHOTOGRAPH BY COLLEEN PINSKI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC YOUR SHOT

People use eclipse glasses to watch an annular solar eclipse.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID MCNEW, GETTY IMAGES

A composite picture shows the sun before, during, and after a total eclipse.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BABAK TAFRESHI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

A special solar filter offers a safe view of the moon covering the sun during the 2008 total solar eclipse, seen here from Siberia.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BABAK TAFRESHI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

Schoolchildren wear protective glasses to watch a partial solar eclipse from London in 2015.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSEPH OKPAKO, GETTY IMAGES

An annular solar eclipse is reflected in a puddle of water in Tanzania in 2016.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL HAYDUK, AFP, GETTY IMAGES

A composite image shows the sun during an annular solar eclipse.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BABAK TAFRESHI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

By Andrew Fazekas

PUBLISHED JUNE 9, 2017

Sky-watchers across the United States are gearing up for the best cosmic spectacle in nearly a century, when a total solar eclipse will race over the entire country for the first time since 1918. On August 21, tens of millions of lucky people will be able to watch the moon completely cover the sun and turn day into night for a few fleeting minutes.

While many people will be traveling to be sure they can see the moon fully blot out the sun, viewers in other parts of the U.S., as well as the rest of North America and parts of Central and South America, will get to enjoy a partial eclipse, when the moon appears to take a bite out the sun.

Here’s everything you need to know to be part of this incredible sky show.

WHAT EXACTLY IS A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE?

A total eclipse of the sun happens when the moon completely blocks the visible solar disk, casting a shadow on Earth. To see a total eclipse, you need to be in the darkest part of this shadow, known as the umbra. People in the lighter part of the shadow, or the prenumbra, will see a partial eclipse.

This in turn means that eclipses can only happen when the moon is precisely aligned between Earth and the sun. Such an arrangement does not occur every month because the moon’s orbit is tilted compared to Earth’s, so that the lunar disk and the solar disk don’t always cross paths.

What’s more, the moon’s orbit is slightly elongated, and the distance between the lunar orb and Earth changes over time. When the moon is farther away, its apparent size isn’t large enough to completely cover the sun, and viewers will see what’s known as an annular eclipse, when a “ring of fire” surrounds the dark lunar disk.

WHY IS THIS ECLIPSE SPECIAL?

Because of the orbital dynamics involved, the moon’s shadow falls on different parts of Earth during each total solar eclipse. Sometimes eclipses are only visible from remote locations or from out at sea, making it difficult for very many people to be in the path of totality.

The path for last total solar eclipse, in March 2016, crossed parts of Indonesia but was otherwise visible only from the waters of the Pacific Ocean. And the continental U.S. hasn’t seen a total solar eclipse since February 1979, when one crossed the Pacific Northwest.

By contrast, the August 21 eclipse will cross the U.S. from coast to coast, with totality visible from several major cities and other locations that are easily accessible to millions of people. The last time this happened was in June 1918, when the path of totality crossed the country from Washington State to Florida.

In addition to attracting record numbers of viewers, easy access to the August event will be a boon to scientists who use eclipses to study the sun’s upper atmosphere, or corona. This mysterious region extends for millions of miles into space but is so faint that it is usually lost in the glare of the star’s disk. During an eclipse, the bright star is covered up, allowing astronomers on the ground to explore the corona.

WHERE SHOULD I BE FOR THE BEST SKY SHOW?

In August, the total eclipse will be visible from a 70-mile-wide corridor stretching about 2,500 miles diagonally from west to east. Depending on where along this pathway you are, the moon will cover the entire sun for up to 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

The path begins in Oregon and crosses through portions of Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina before ending in South Carolina.

WILL WATCHING A SOLAR ECLIPSE HURT MY EYES?

When it comes to viewing a solar eclipse, safety is paramount. Looking at the sun anytime without eye protection may cause permanent damage.

The best way to watch an eclipse unfold is to use special glasses with lenses made from a solar filter shaded thousands of times darker than any personal sunglasses. Wearing these filtered glasses, you can safely watch the partial eclipse before and after totality, as the moon’s disk moves across the sun. (Read about a project to provide eclipse glasses to communities around the world.)

Once the moon completely covers the sun, it is safe to look at the eclipse with your naked eyes. As day briefly turns to night, stars and planets can become visible in the sky, temperatures noticeably drop, and your surroundings may become silent as animals react to the sudden darkness.

People outside the path of totality can use filtered glasses to watch the partial eclipse. And anyone can watch indirectly using a pinhole camera, which projects an image of the sun onto a flat surface for safe viewing.

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I CAN’T TRAVEL?

If you can’t get into the path of totality this August, people around the world will be able to join in via live-streaming services such as those offered by NASA and astronomy education group Slooh.

And if you miss this eclipse entirely, you’ll only have to wait until July 2019, when the next total solar eclipse crosses Chile and Argentina. However, the next total solar eclipse to cross the United States won’t happen until April 2024.